Overview
- At a tense community meeting, Navy environmental coordinator Michael Pound acknowledged mishandling the disclosure and issued a public apology.
- The positive air sample for plutonium‑239 was characterized as an outlier measuring about 0.04 millirem, which is far below levels considered harmful.
- The result exceeded the project’s agreed action level, prompting re-analysis and a third‑party lab audit that affirmed the plutonium finding as valid while calling it an outlier.
- Regulators said they were notified late, with the EPA learning of the finding on Oct. 23, and agencies have requested complete monitoring records for review.
- The reading came from Parcel C during asphalt grinding work, community distrust remains high, and San Francisco supervisors plan to take up the issue in December.